|
|
January 14, 2005
Agency moves to meet demand
Jewish Family Service Agency will leave community centre next
month.
PAT JOHNSON
The Jewish Family Service Agency will leave the Jewish Community
Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC) next month and move to a new location
on Broadway.
The change is significant for a number of reasons, said the agency's
executive director, Joseph Kahn-Tietz, not least of which is that
the existing 3,000-square-foot facility is far too small for an
agency that is growing by leaps and bounds.
"We have 30 staff squished into 14 offices," said Kahn-Tietz.
"The nature of some of our work is confidential, so it's almost
untenable. We have staff rotating hours. We have held back on all
new hires for over a year now. We can't do it anymore. We clearly
need much more space."
The new location – almost double the floor space – comes
with a lower per-square-foot price tag than the present digs.
There are advantages to maintaining an office in the JCC, where
most of the larger and some of the smaller communal agencies reside,
Kahn-Tietz said. But for an agency whose work requires confidentiality,
the proximity at the heart of the community can be a disadvantage.
The new location at 1985 West Broadway, at the corner of Maple,
will be easily accessible by transit, but set apart from most other
Jewish communal agencies. This is a trend being followed by JFSAs
across North America, which are increasingly locating apart from
other Jewish agencies. In fact, the JFSA, which was founded in Vancouver
in 1936, has been located in the JCC only for the past decade. Kahn-Tietz
said he hopes the JFSA will be able to maintain some sort of satellite
presence in the centre, such as a desk or a small office.
"It will provide greater anonymity for our counselling clients,"
said Kahn-Tietz, who added that his staff know of many people who
will not seek counselling services or access poverty relief programs
because of the agency's location. The food bank operated by JFSA
was moved out of the JCC two years ago, to prevent the unnecessary
spectacle of people lining up for food in the halls of the JCC.
Though the new location is away from the perceived centre of communal
life, it is a block from Maplecrest, a nonprofit Jewish housing
facility that recently came under the jurisdiction of the Jewish
Federation of Greater Vancouver.
"It's going to be a new sort of Jewish corridor," said
Kahn-Tietz. Even so, the new location is considered temporary. The
ideal situation, said Kahn-Tietz, is that the JFSA will eventually
build and/or own its own building, so the agency will build equity
rather than pay rent. Rent accounts for about five per cent of the
agency's $2.5 million annual budget. An eventual facility owned
by the JFSA might coincide with an attached housing development.
The move was necessitated by an exponential growth in the JFSA's
activities. The budget has more than doubled in five years and the
variety of services has expanded. Counselling services, seniors
outreach, basic needs, resettlement, job match and vocational programs
have all grown as demand increases.
"Each department has grown extensively, so we're now servicing
close to 7,000 people a year and providing probably double the programs
we used to," he said.
Despite the rise in the budget, Kahn-Tietz said the programs are
still not meeting demand.
"There's no fat on the bone," he said. Among the programs
begun or increased in the last few years are community kitchens,
seniors lunch programs, outreach to the gay and lesbian community,
domestic violence programs and services for people with special
needs.
"Is that superfluous?" Kahn-Tietz asked. "No. Those
are vital programs that a community of our size should be doing
and there's more that continues to be needed."
Another advantage of maintaining a separate physical location is
that it should help identify the JFSA in the public's mind. There
may be some confusion in the community, Kahn-Tietz acknowledged,
between the various acronymed agencies in the community, including
his agency, the JCC and Federation. Because JFSA depends on its
own fund-raising to provide almost three-quarters of its budget,
the necessity of public awareness of its programs is obvious. Slightly
more than one-quarter of the JFSA budget comes from the annual Federation
campaign disbursements.
The office does not plan to close at all during the move, which
will take place at the end of February. The facility vacated by
the JFSA will be filled by a new museum of British Columbia Jewish
history, which is expected to open by year's end.
JFSA director to stay
The Jewish Family Service Agency has renewed the contract of executive
director Joseph Kahn-Tietz for five years. Lani Levine, president
of the board of the JFSA, said her board is delighted that Kahn-Tietz
will be around for at least another five years.
"It means we have some stability," said Levine. "We
have an executive director who deals extremely well with the board
and the executive, a person with vision and energy. We all feel
extremely positive about this. Joseph has helped put us on the map."
The enthusiasm is shared by Kahn-Tietz, who said his family is pleased
to be here.
"We're making a home for ourselves in this community,"
said Kahn-Tietz, whose family originates from Los Angeles but came
to Vancouver via Israel, where Kahn-Tietz worked with the New Israel
Fund for a decade. The family became landed immigrants in Canada
last year.
Kahn-Tietz is a clinical psychologist with a PhD from Yale, which
offers a program linked with nonprofit management. He recently completed
a nonprofit management program at Columbia University in New York.
He has been with JFSA in Vancouver since 1999 and said the excellent,
committed group of staff and board made it easy for him to commit
to another five years at the helm.
"It is rare to work in such a challenging, dynamic and worthwhile
environment with such dedicated [people]," he said. "It's
a wonderful agency with a vital mission. I feel honored to be part
of this mandate."
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
^TOP
|
|
